đ Do You Ever(note)?
I use mine nearly daily as a writer's tool--even though I barely ever use it for actual writing!
One of the funny âI didnât realize until I tried to go proâ things about writing that I didnât realize when I got into it is that there is SO much to keep track of.
Manuscripts. Reading notes. Story ideas and interesting tidbits. Visual inspiration (which I will write more about later). All of that, but also, to my surprise: LoAdS oâ RaNdOm CrAfT aNd InDuStRy ScHtUfF.
Craft and industry schtuff, for me, can includeâbut certainly isnât limited to: revision tips from prosâŠwebinar handoutsâŠscreenshots of all sorts (maybe a tip from an agent about queryingâŠmaybe a great illustrator youâd love to work with someday, etc.)âŠ.my notes from retreats, workshops, and other events. Basically, all the digital or scannable âI really want to save this, but I donât know âto what endâ yetâ kind of stuff that Iâm hit in the eye-holes with nearly every day.
PRO TIP: When organizing, always first get rid of as much of the schlocky stuff as you can. Just Marie Kondo the crap outta it. This is hands-down the single best thing you can do for future âmining gold onlyâ you. (As they say: garbage in, garbage out!)
StillâŠeven then, how do you organize all the remainingâŠrandomness? This, for me, is where my trusty Evernote app comes in! <sound of heralding trumpets> In fact, outside of story ideas or actual writing, I keep almost everything in Evernote notebooks for relatively easy access (relatively, because, as the Pretty Woman quote goes, âIâm a safety girlâŠâ and I always use two-step verification).
Here are some examples of my publishing-y Evernote notebooks:
Agents and Agenting
Book Marketing and Publicity Ideas
Illustration (this is where I keep illustration process-related tips and goodness)
Picture Book Review Notes (this is where I keep my âjust for myselfâ reading notes)
Publishers and Imprints
Smile File (this is where I keep things that would make you gag, like scans of awards or nice notes Iâve gotten)
Webinar and Workshop Notes (these are tagged with general terms like revision, board books, or whatever might be related that is not already in the text of the note)
You get the pictureâŠ
Why Evernote? There are many reasons (I have been using it since 2009 for all sorts of information hoarding), but the main one is that Evernote uses OCR in its search, so it can quickly comb through .pdf and other image files for text. So, even if I upload a photo of my vaguely legible handwritten notes, Evernote can reliably search that text for me and bring up matching phrases later. I know that if I go into Evernote and type in, say, âEditorfirstname Editorlastname,â it absolutely will bring up notes I have from the webinars Iâve attended with that editor, any references to them in SCBWIâs âThe Bookâ (which I keep in my Evernote), maybe a helpful Tweet or two they shared that I screenshot, and also perhaps things I hadnât even thought to check, like a particularly good interview one of their authors where they talked about working with that editor. Itâs like the best âpure RAMâ version of your brain, but you know, not busy with remembering everything else you have to remember and not needing enough coffee to fuel a prairie dog town (like the creative side of my brain prefers). And, itâs curated by youâso itâs not, like, an endless Google scrollâitâs just the stuff you bothered to save because you really thought it might be/was useful.
Having said that, a lot of the benefit I derive from Evernote comes from the fact that I have been happily using it for a very long time (so switching would be a pain) and that I also used the paid version (so I donât have upload limits Iâve ever hit). I know plenty of people who are pretty happy with OneNote, though, and Iâve also heard good things about Joplin! (Iâm not getting paid for any of this; this is just a non-expertâs blathering.)
No matter what, I personally think itâs worth putting a little bit of time into discovering what works for you in terms of info-management and sticking with it: Iâve only found myself using my systems far more, not less, as my career has kicked off. (Then again, you may be different!)
What do you use to store, and retrieve, your random information?
Your ânote to selfâ-loving friend,
Elayne
My posts are always free, but my focus isn't; if you found this post interesting or useful, please consider âĄ' ing it so I know. Thank you!
Love this Elayne! Iâm constantly trying to figure out how to organize all my stuff! Though I think I am getting to a place where I like my system! But I still love learning about how others do it.